The lives of farm dogs to be revealed in study
Kiwis will soon have a clearer picture of what it’s like to be a working dog on a New Zealand farm, with 150 dogs about to be fitted with an electronic tracking monitor on their collars.
Farm dogs are the high performance athletes of our farms, study leader and Massey University epidemiologist Dr Naomi Cogger said. But until now, very little data about Kiwi farm dogs’ health and physiology existed.
Since the study was announced, farmers have inundated her with questions to help them care for their dogs.
‘‘They are actually quite a huge investment in time and emotional investment for the farm, so farmers want to keep them running longer.
‘‘In Australia. they value their financial contribution at $40,000 over a lifetime. But if you talk to farmers in New Zealand, some hill country farms are not viable without dogs, you might need eight or nine shepherds for one dog.’’
She believes there is likely about 200,000 working farm dogs in New Zealand.
The collar project is part of a wider five year study she is running, where 600 dogs are being visited every six months by a vet for a full physical.
The checks were ‘‘to find out what goes wrong with their health and if we can give them a longer and healthier career’’, she said. It started in 2014.
The collar monitor project will take extra readings for types of activities, energy expenditure, sleep quality and environmental temperature for one year. This information will be cross referenced with the health data collected from the same dogs in the long-term study.
It could give vets and farmers insight into ideal body condition, energy intake versus activity levels, and how other stresses affect a working dog’s health.
‘‘Right now, nobody has any idea what it takes for a dog to go out and do its job each day and how much dogs work.’’
The majority of farm dogs are cared for well, though many farmers want more information about ideal weights for their dogs, she said.
‘‘People coming from a town environment will look at a dog and say ‘gee that dog’s skinny’, but they have to run up hills, they have to work really hard. It’s in their interest to be light.’’
However, the data could open up the debate about simple kennels versus heated kennels, she said.
‘‘It’s a valid concern. We know that once they get below a certain ambient temperature you have to burn more energy to maintain body heat.’’
The study concludes in 2019.